Hummingbird

After last night's episode, I tried to avoid as many of the guys as I could. I had never wanted them to see me like that. It's not even like the nightmare is a terribly horrifying scary-movie worthy one. It's not even something that anybody else would find upsetting. But every time I have that nightmare, I wake up screaming. Chris and Caleb were the only ones who have ever seen me after a nightmare before. I hadn't had one in months, and it wasn't a mystery as to why I had one again.

So far, the tent has been really slow moving today, not many people were buying shirts or posters, and I was getting bored. I looked down the courtyard and saw the one thing that could make my day worse. David was walking this way.

Panicking, I looked around. In front of me were a group of girls, a couple with NeverShoutNever shirts on. Saved.

"Hey," I called to them. A couple looked startled, others annoyed. "If you come over here and look like you're asking questions, I promise I can get you some of Chris's autographs." I knew it was shallow and terribly mean of me to do, but there was no way I could talk to David right now. With the promise of a signature, the girls happily came over and started bombarding me with questions.

"Do you personally know Chris?" "Can you get us backstage?" "How long have you two known each other?" "Are you two dating?" were the types of questions that came in rapid succession. By the time the girls had started to calm down, David had appeared. I gave him an apologetic smile before turning back to the group that would put off what I didn't want to talk about. I took my time to answer the questions, and gave more explanations than they probably wanted. Eventually, they did run out of questions, and I had to tell them to come back in a couple of hours to get the autographs.

All through this time, David stayed. And the second the girls left, he came up with a question of his own.
"So you're dating Mabbitt?" He asked, looking more than hurt.

I didn't want to have to hurt him, he was such a sweetheart. "Yes," I replied quietly.

"Alright then."

I was shocked. He didn't look like he was going to ask anymore questions, and before I could say anything else, he stormed away. "David!" I called after him, but he didn't turn around. I felt terrible, but there wasn't much I could do from behind my booth. I knew that eventually, I would have to fix things between us, but that could wait till later.

-

I didn't get done with the booth until the very end of the day. I grabbed my now empty water bottle and tossed it in the nearest trashcan that I could find. Without thinking, I made my way towards the buses and before I knew it, I was standing in front of Escape the Fate's bus. Out of nowhere, Bryan came up behind me, holding his guitar.

"Gotcha," he said, and I spun around to find myself face-to-face with the guitarist. "Looking for Craig?" He asked.

"Uhh, kindof," I admitted. He smiled at me and opened the door, waiting for me to walk in. I walked up the stairs and made my way over to the couch while Bryan took his guitar and put it in the case under his bed.
"Craig's in the shower, but he should be out in just a minute." He shoved the case back under his bunk and walked over to the bathroom door. "Mabbit! Your girl's here!" He pounded on the door, letting Craig know that I was here. A feeling of excitement rushed through me when I heard Bryan call me "Craig's girl".

"Hi, Niki!" I heard Craig yell.

I giggled and yelled back, "Hi, Craig!"

I heard laughter and the sound of voices, and within seconds, Robert and Max walked onto the bus.
"Niki!" They both yelled. Max, running like a little girl, came over and sat on my lap. "How've you been?"

I laughed, "I've been pretty good." I shoved him off my lap and he went over to the fridge.

"Are you thirsty?"

"Yeah, just a bit."

A water came flying my way and I caught it with ease. The water in the bathroom shut off, and Craig walked out, sweatpants on and shirt off. I tried not to stare, and failed miserably.

"Mabbitt, put a damn shirt on. We have a lady in the room!" Robert yelled at Craig, who only laughed in reply. He grabbed a shirt out of a bag on his bed and walked over towards me.

"Hey," he said. He kissed me, but only briefly, and then sat down next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him, I could have stayed there forever. But when living in the presence of guys, you learn that moments like this can never last forever.

"Craig, keep your hands to yourself. Don't scare her off already. We actually like this one, we'd like to see her stay around," Max said. I blushed, as did Craig.

Robert fell into the seat next to me. "Hey, what time are the buses leaving tonight?"

I felt Craig move as he searched his sweatpants pockets for his phone. "Uhh, in like a half hour. How long are you staying, Niki?"

I contemplated this. "Probably for about twenty more minutes. I don't wanna get stranded, and I promised Chris that I would help him put new strings on his guitars." Which was true, Chris had no idea where his guitar strings were, and didn't have anywhere near enough patience to sit and put new strings on all of his guitars. I didn't mind though, it was always an activity that we did together.

"Alright, that works."

It was nice, sitting with my new friends and boyfriend. God, it was so weird to think that my most outrageous wish came true. I never in a million years believed that I would end up dating the singer of my favorite band. And the rest of the guys really seemed to like me, which was good. It was nice to have friends outside of Chris and the Shout, which I had few of. Aside from anyone in a band, I had few close friends that I actually talked to on a close to regular basis. I was fine with this, I kept a busy enough life following Chris around on tour that I had little time for anyone outside the world of his music. I had only a few more years of school left, and then I could continue with the rest of my life, this time, without any interruptions.
Before I knew it, twenty minutes had flown by. "Well, I don't wanna miss my bus, so I'm gonna get going." I stood and stretched.

"I'll walk you out," Craig said as he stood up.

"Alright," I smiled, "I'll probably see you guys tomorrow. Bye, Bryan, bye, Max, bye, Robert."

"Bye, Niki," the all replied in unison.

I smiled and reached back for the hand that fit together with mine so perfectly. We walked off of the bus, and I turned to face Craig.

"Thanks for coming over tonight, it was a lot of fun."

"No problem, I had a lot of fun."

"Good night, Niki." Like last night, he leaned in and I felt our lips connect, and this time, neither of us pulled away right away. It seemed like hours that we stayed in our embrace, but reality settled back as we finally broke apart.

"Good night, Craig. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow," he smiled and gave my hand one last squeeze before turning back to re-join his friends.

I set off to find my bus. It was quiet, it seemed like everybody was inside his or her bus. The only people I saw were a few security guards going around for the last times of the day. How could life have changed so much in the past couple of years? For once, I had a feeling that everything was going to work out.